An official with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says some 90-thousand hunters were out in Iowa’s fields and woods over the weekend for the opening of shotgun season — but several of them didn’t make it home.
D-N-R spokesman Kevin Baskins says three hunters were badly injured in separate incidents while one was killed yesterday (Sunday) near Oxford along the Iowa-Johnson County. In a group of four hunters, two were herding deer towards the other two, a shot was fired which hit and killed 31-year-old Scott Knebel of North Liberty. The incident is under investigation.
Baskins says two hunters were injured on the season’s opening day, Saturday, in Fayette County. 39-year-old Timothy Lammers, of Hazleton, was injured by a self-inflicted wound to his leg. Lammers was with a group of hunters Saturday morning at a farm east of the Volga River State Recreation Area when he was showing a handgun to friends and the gun went off.
Also, 43-year-old Jeff Koester, of Eldorado, was injured when he and a group of four other hunters were dragging two deer and one of the people in the group slipped, resulting in a shotgun firing and hitting Koester in the upper thigh. Both men were hospitalized.
Baskins says another hunter was hurt yesterday (Sunday).
47-year-old Dan Schlicher, of Brighton, was hunting near Fairfield in Jefferson County when his gun jammed. In the act of trying to fix the gun, it went off, hitting Schlicher in the leg.